Only a small fraction of Americans are formally trained as “scientists.” But that doesn’t mean that only a small fraction of Americans can participate in scientific discovery and innovation. Citizen science and crowdsourcing are approaches that educate, engage, and empower the public to apply their curiosity and talents to a wide range of real-world problems. To raise awareness of these tools and encourage more Americans to take advantage of them, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Domestic Policy Council will host “Open Science and Innovation: Of the People, For the People, By the People,” a live-webcast forum, on Wednesday, September 30th.

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We hope that from 8 AM-12 PM EDT on Wednesday, September 30, you’ll tune in to wh.gov/liveto follow the livestream of the forum, and that you’ll participate by sending in your thoughts, comments, and questions to @WhiteHouseOSTP using the hashtag #WHCitSci.

I encourage everyone out there to participate … We need to continue efforts to engage the public in science … and this is certainly one approach that can help.

From the White House blog: Tiye Garrett-Mills, 17, a citizen scientist from Denver, Colorado, shows her leaf-scanning concept to Astronaut Leland Melvin at the 2015 White House Science Fair. She also demonstrated her project to President Obama during the event. (Photo credit: Jenn Gustetic)